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BART Facing Questions Again With Officer's Use Of Force During Arrest
November 23, 2009 8:03 a.m. EST
 
Topics: United States
 
Kris Alingod - AHN Contributor
 
Oakland, CA (AHN) - The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) has launched a probe on the arrest of a passenger over the weekend by one of its officers who appears in video to have pushed the man against a glass window. The transit agency is still in the process of rectifying "lapses" it said had caused last year's New Year's Day shooting that resulted in the death of an unarmed passenger and massive racially-charged riots.
A 37-year-old man, Michael Joseph Gibson, appeared to be drunk and was yelling profanity and racial slurs at passengers late Saturday afternoon on a train at the West Oakland station, according to BART. An officer, whose name has not been released, responded to the disturbance by removing Gibson from the train and trying to arrest him on the platform.
During the attempt to arrest Gibson, BART said, the "heavy-duty glass portion of the wall was broken and showered down on the officer and the suspect." The officer suffered a concussion and cuts to the face requiring multiple stitches, while Gibson suffered a minor cut to his head and multiple lacerations to his right hand, right forearm. None of Gibson's wounds required stitches.
Video of the arrest was taken by another passenger and uploaded on YouTube. It shows a man yelling at fellow passengers and then being led out of the train by a uniformed officer. The officer then appears to push the man's head against the glass window above the wall of the platform, at which point the glass shatters. At only one point does the man appear to resist the officer, which is after the glass shatters and the officer can be heard shouting "on the floor."
BART Police Patrol Commander Daniel Hartwig has said in a statement, "This is a use-of-force case that we will thoroughly investigate. We will review all available information and video and are requesting anybody with any other video or information to please come forward."
The officer is on industrial leave because he is injured. Gibson was booked into Santa Rita County Jail, and faces charges of battery on a police officer with injury, obstructing and resisting an officer and disorderly conduct, and being intoxicated in public.
A spokesman for BART has told CNN that the officer has only been with BART since May, but had served in a local law enforcement agency for several years prior to that.
The sister of Gibson has told CNN that her brother suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
The incident comes less than a week after a judge ruled that trial of a former BART officer, Johannes Mehserle, accused of murdering Oscar Grant, would be held in Los Angeles.
Grant, a 22-year-old African-American, was fatally shot by an officer while on his way home on a train in the early hours of Jan. 1. He was one of several riders ordered off a train at Fruitvale station by transit police who were trying to break up a fight among some passengers.
Grant's death was recorded by other passengers taking video of the commotion using their cell phones. The videos show him kneeling with his arms raised along with other passengers on the platform, being forced face down onto the ground by two police officers, and then being shot.
Mehserle has pleaded not guilty, and claims to have mistakenly shot Grant with his gun instead of his Taser. He resigned on Jan.7, when he was scheduled to answer questions for the first time about the shooting. The same day, riots broke out in Oakland as demonstrators protesting what they said was BART's mishandling of the investigation, smashed storefronts and cars.
In June, Meyers Nave, the law firm hired by the transit agency to review the shooting incident, said that there were "shortcomings in tactics used by officers" and "lapses in communication and leadership." It also concluded that "officers did not follow recommended procedures [and] failed to work as a team reducing their effectiveness by working independently while also increasing their chances of being assaulted."
The firm also said BART's reporting of use-of-force incidents was "substandard." Portions of the BART policy manual, the firm added, had not been updated since the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s.
 
 
 
  
 
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